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Scott Pioli recalled being ‘in awe’ of Richard Seymour during a scouting trip in 2000
"I hadn't seen anyone that big, that explosive up close."
The Celtics’ nine-game winning streak came to an end on Wednesday night in a 112-111 loss to the Pistons. Boston will now enjoy a short break until a Thursday (Feb. 24) matchup with the Nets.
The Bruins are back in action tonight at 7:30 p.m. against the Islanders.
And at the Olympics, U.S. women’s hockey lost to Canada 3-2 in the gold medal game.
Scott Pioli’s story about scouting Richard Seymour: Former Patriots defensive lineman Richard Seymour was among the recently announced Pro Football Hall of Fame class of 2022. A seven-time Pro Bowler and three-time First Team All-Pro, Seymour helped the Patriots win the team’s first three Super Bowl titles.
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Before that, he was a standout player at the University of Georgia, where then-Patriots director of player personnel Scott Pioli first saw him during a scouting trip in Oct. 2000.
Pioli, now an analyst for the NFL Network, recently recalled scouting Seymour in-person for the first time.
“We were playing in Indianapolis the next day, so I flew out to the University of Kentucky to watch the University of Georgia play Kentucky,” Pioli recalled in a recent interview.
Georgia featured Seymour and fellow lineman Marcus Stroud, both of whom were seen as likely first-round picks.
“We knew that we had to fix our offensive line and our defensive line,” said Pioli. He pointed out the importance of going the extra mile in scouting, and how it allowed him to get at least an initial sense of who Seymour was.
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“I saw how serious Richard was, how he was approaching things as a professional, I was like, ‘OK, I think this guy gets it, he’s going to fit from a culture standpoint,'” Pioli recalled.
Scouting Seymour helped underscore a lesson for Pioli; That traditional metrics only go so far, and that the numbers have to be combined with a simple eye test.
“Sometimes as a scout, we love to look at analytics, we love to look at times, we love to look at those things, but sometimes you see and hear things as a scout that tell you about explosion, about power,” said Pioli. “When Richard hit the goalpost, and swatted it, [with] the quickness, and the explosion, and then the movement, and the smoothness, and the athleticism, I could hear and see what this guy was made of. I was in awe. I hadn’t seen anyone that big, that explosive up close.”
The visit to see Seymour play—a game which Georgia won, 34-30—possibly helped push the Patriots closer to selecting him with the sixth overall pick in the 2001 draft. New England went on to win the Super Bowl the following season, thanks in part to the addition of Seymour.
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“To me, Richard is the total package,” Pioli concluded. “He’s not only a Hall of Fame player, because he had a Hall of Fame career, but he was truly—and is truly—a Hall of Fame person.”
Trivia: Who was the oldest player on the 2007-2008 Celtics?
(Answer at the bottom).
Hint: He joined the team in February of 2008, having not played since the previous season with the Bulls.
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Here’s Stephen A. Smith’s viral rant about the “trash” Knicks:
Brittany Bowe won her first career Olympic medal with a bronze in the 1000-meter:
On this day: In 2014, Meryl Davis and Charlie White won the gold medal in ice dance at the Sochi Winter Olympics. It was the first time United States athletes had won the event.
Daily highlight: Lucas Carlsson made one of the saves of the year by a non-goaltender in the Panthers’ 3-2 overtime win over the Hurricanes on Wednesday.
Trivia answer: P.J. Brown
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